Nissan retracts ‘number one importer’ target

Nissan has withdrawn its bold target of becoming the top selling full-line importer in Australia, with “sustained growth” the revised focus.

Speaking at the Australian media launch of the all-new Nissan Patrol, Nissan general manager of marketing Peter Clissold said the top-importer targets set by former-CEO, and now vice president of finance for Nissan Europe, Dan Thompson, did not reflect the goals of the current team.

“I know a lot has been said about that… [but] we’re just aiming to grow, year on year.

“Accolades like number one importer, or number four, five or six in the marketplace, those are going to be just outputs.”

Asked directly whether becoming the number one full-line importer in this country was a target for Nissan Australia, Clissold replied “no”. Pushed as to why previous Nissan management would have made the bold claim, Clissold said “I don’t know” while reinforcing the goals of the current management team.

“We would’ve had 75,000 [vehicles sold for financial year 2011] if not for natural disasters. We are going to take share from Hyundai and Mazda with Pulsar,” asserted Thompson last March.

“We have always tracked how the top 10 brands performed or have performed over the last four-year period. I’d say six of the top 10 brands have gone backwards quite significantly. It’s only really us, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Mazda that have seen significant progress over the last four years.”

Thompson was replaced by current Nissan Australia managing director and CEO Bill Peffer in April 2012, however even in October last year, Peffer said that he was still committed to making Nissan the number one importer.

Contrary to the suggestion by Thompson that Nissan would take the top importer spot with ease, Clissold painted a more difficult picture for Nissan’s path ahead.

“Continuous year on year growth … it’s not a given.

“You’ve got to do it right; the dealers have to come along with you, the products have to be right, [and] the marketing…

“We want new vehicles like Pulsar, and like Patrol, to be incremental to our dealer’s business and not just substitutional.

“They’ve done a great job this year, we’re on track for 84,259 for the fiscal year [2012] which is a huge number compared with previous years.”

In the first month of 2013, Nissan was the second most popular full-line importer in Australia, securing 7248 sales, 1664 behind first-placed Mazda. Nissan has, however, narrowed the gap to Mazda substansially compared with January 2012, raising its sales volume by 35.3 per cent compared with Mazda’s 5.1 per cent lift.

Nissan Australia is planning launch 12 new models by 2015, four of which will appear in this calendar year. In addition to the Pulsar launched last week, and the Patrol launched this week, Nissan will add the Juke sub-compact SUV (below) to its line-up in May, with the Altima mid-sized sedan and all-new Pathfinder mid-sized SUV set to debut “within weeks of each other” in October, according to Peffer.

just like the labor government and their fake surplus! if nissan make it to full line importer they will not deserve it because the current range of cars (not including the 370z and gtr) are sub par and no where near how good the mazdas are

Got_rice

lol you funny guy…

peddy.d

mate firstly a) you don’t know how to spell labor
b) obviously you don’t know anything about economics
and the new pulsar looks like a good all round car, many people like their cars to be understated and Nissan does that pretty well.

Golfmother

Peddy.d , zaccy spelt labor as in labor party correctly.

Corleone

Love it when people make fools of themselves, thinking they’re correcting something that is in in fact correct to begin with. Shame shame peddy.d, but thanks for the laugh.

Fasdf

It wasn’t correct to begin with. Notice that Zaccy16’s comment has a “edited by author” tag on it with a time stamp that is AFTER peddy’s comment and in fact after your comment Corleone.

Shane

Correct, you are all dumarses

Mark

Golfmother, zaccy edited it after peddy.d pointed it out.

peddy.d

haha looks like someone rewrote their comment

Doctor

Peddy.d, its labor who can’t spell labour properly. No wonder it can’t get anything else right!

Crazy n00b

It’s not going to happen if their cars are half Renaults.

http://www.bryanbyrtrenault.com.au/ Modern Man

Yeah because renaults sell horribly overseas dont they?

Renault-Nissan alliance is on track to be the third largest manufacturer in the world for 2012. Must be doing something right.

Al Tungupon

How pathetic that claim sounds when said by a manufacturer the automotive world can live without.

Darryl

Doesn’t help Nissan that they take so long to bring these cars to Oz.The Toyota Corolla and Mazda 6, to name 2 examples I can think of straight away, arrived here pretty soon after they were released. In fact before they were on sale in many markets. All of these new Nissans have been on sale in various overseas markets longer than those 2. Still, good luck to them.

O123

Totally agree. Nissan seems to take forever to get new models over here.

TG

Ah Nissan, the CCC (Comedy Car Company) of the automotive world.

Passer By

Really? Is that in your world or the real world?

Passer By

I suppose the GT-R is pretty hilarious… unless you’re in a $700,000 Ferrari at a set of traffic lights